The official Mastodon app (and most other Fediverse apps) do not collect any data about you.
When you sign up on a Fediverse server, it asks for the minimum amount of information (an email address and a password) and none of this info goes to the app or app makers.
This is in stark contrast to other social networks which seem to collect lots of personal info. See the attached image for a comparison of the privacy policies of various official social network apps.
#Privacy #FediTips #Fediverse
@[email protected] It seems to be that Bluesky is benign here, with diagnostics arguably being excusable, and the other ones just counting data submitted to the server (which Mastodon would then “collect”, too)
@[email protected]
It is worrying that BlueSky is already collecting data they don’t need.
“(which Mastodon would then “collect”, too)”
No, they wouldn’t. The makers of Mastodon’s software and the owners of Mastodon servers are totally separate things.
Most people are on third party Mastodon servers which have no connection to the makers of Mastodon’s software or the official apps.
This is one of the points of decentralisation, to avoid having any kind of central control point.
@[email protected] Right, that was my point. BlueSky is also technically decentralized and I am saying that maybe this data collection listed here is not by the app itself, but by the relevant server.
@FediTips I don’t know if this is the case but I also don’t see any reason to believe otherwise.
@anselmschueler
The reason to believe otherwise is to compare the entry for Mastodon and BlueSky.
According to their app store entries, Mastodon collects nothing, BlueSky collects something.
This is the point of my original post with its comparisons of screenshots from app stores.
@[email protected] As I understand app developers are given some latitude in how they fill in these boxes, so what I was considering was the possibility that the BlueSky developers interpreted the requirements for this information differently.
@[email protected]
Ahh okay… that’s an interesting point. It would be good to have more info on that.